My writing workshop was meeting at Edgewater Park today [Sunday June 9], and I volunteered to come early and hold on to a table with a grill. It was good I did this, because judging by the number of people who came up to me and asked me, “Are you using this grill?” with coolers and bags of charcoal in their hands, Edgewater suffers from Grill Scarcity.
I arrived three hours early and planned to pass the time knitting, journaling, and faffing about on my phone. First, I picked up an empty box of Black and Milds, the lid from a McDonald’s cup, and a few other small pieces of trash that had been left around the area. I was about halfway to the trashcan when I noticed a penny in the grass, shining brightly. “Oo,” I thought, “See a penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck!” But my hands were full of trash.
I looked in vain for the penny on my return trip, and retraced my steps twice before I realized I was spending an inordinate time over something as small as a penny. I gave up my search and went to move the picnic table a little closer to the grill so people would stop asking me if I was claiming it or not.
It wasn’t like I was dooming my luck if I didn’t pick the penny up, right?
I felt slightly like I was dooming my luck. I was nervous to be alone in the busy park with my laptop in a bag that could easily be snatched if I wasn’t paying attention. The weather was cooler than it should be, and what if everyone got lost on their way here?
Geoff and Mary were the first to arrive, and they came up from the grass, not the path, so I knew I hadn’t been clear with my directions, and Geoff said, “This isn’t what I meant.” He was the one who asked someone to arrive early and claim “one of the picnic tables with a grill near the Beach House.” I’d started on the north side of the house, and walked until I found tables with grills, which were not very close.
“There are tables on the east side of the house,” he said. And there were! They were insanely close to the action, and the parking lot, great for our wheelchair bound companions. How had I missed them? One was even still open!
“We could move?”
“Too late, everyone has directions now.”
Well, it is what it is, but I kept looking back at the Beach House, thinking about how close we could be to it, and the handicap-accessible restrooms that Gloria and Patty would appreciate.
Because there had been a flurry of “Can’t make it” emails in the week leading up, I had squatted on a picnic site with only one table. However, quickly we have more than our usual turnout, plus friends and family. I felt foolish. Then I went to swim, and the beach was closed because of dangerous currents. (Yes, Lake Erie can get rip tides. Weird, right?)
Was it the penny? Was this all bad luck?
Well, way back when I moved the picnic table, I found a nickel. I looked down just as I set the end and there it was, buried in the grass, not as shiny and prominent as the penny had appeared, but definitely a nickel. And me with two free hands. I tucked it in my back pocket.
Sundays at noon, I try to work out over zoom with my friend Gabby, and I had been missing her more often than not lately. It was just when I sat down to check the time, having completed my picnic-place preparations, that I saw a text from her asking if I wanted to work out. So I propped my phone on the table and we did yoga together! It was lovely. I hardly noticed the “wait” time.
Though I couldn’t go into the water, I enjoyed splashing along the water’s edge, and sat for a while to play in the sand. I saw a young father shuffling back and forth, playing defense against a laughing toddler determined to go into the forbidden waves. It was so cute! I was glad to have witnessed it.
As for the spots closer to the beach house, the high winds were blowing a sandstorm over the tables Geoff had initially intended for us to use, so my choice of spot turned out to be luckier.
Luck itself is a weird, misleading concept. I mean, unless you’re mid-orgasm, things can always be better, right? And as long as you are alive, they can be worse. It’s really a question of which direction you direct your gaze: on the stretch of grass that might have a penny, or on the nickel before you.
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